Dennis was seated at the front of the plane, and didn't realize how serious the situation was until the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, had been incapacitated.

Originally I assumed it was an unruly passenger but then they started yelling for water and were running up the aisle so you gradually realized something more serious was taking place. By the time they grabbed the fire extinguisher I knew for sure we had an issue.

Once Mutallab was restrained, he was seated and tied to a seat only a few feet away from Dennis. "The first thing that caught my eyes was the severity of his wounds," she said. "The skin [on his legs] was really gone in very large patches. It just looked as if it had been melted away."

She was also surprised by how calm he was, that he didn't express any pain or emotion. "It was as if he was just another passenger sitting there."